Most of what is called ‘communication’ is little more than verbal and written descriptions of objects and events, story-telling and gossip, projecting an image of ourselves that we want to create, and camouflaging our actual feelings, intentions and actions. Primarily, we use language to carry out the ordinary routines of daily life, which takes the form of requests, such as when we order a meal in a restaurant or ask an employee to do a specific task.
Sometimes communication is highly entertaining and stimulating, such as when we attend a party full of interesting people. More often, however, our speaking actually contributes to confusion, conflict and apathy, thereby undermining our own projects as well as those of others.
None of these forms of communication have the power to bring about a positive change or transformation in either our environment or ourselves. In fact, all too often the opposite is occurring. We use language to keep our lives predictable and mired in the status quo. Even worse, our speaking may actually undermine the well being and self-esteem of others as well as ourselves. Most of this is unconscious.
We have a steady stream of ‘self-talk’ which is going on in our heads and which arises from our unconscious. The bulk of this inner dialogue is rooted in fear and is the source of our apathy, indecision and frustration in life. When we open our mouths to speak, our self-talk becomes an outer dialogue, which is primarily shaped by our unconscious doubts, anxieties and prejudices. It gets transmitted into our environment, like a kind of virus, infecting our listeners and triggering their insecurities.
If we observe how we feel after a fifteen-minute conversation with someone, our body will tell us what we have received from that person. Similarly, their body will tell them what they have just received from us. Their words and our words may have seemed pleasant on the surface, but either one or both of us may nevertheless feel a loss of energy. What people say and what they mean are often two different things. If we want to know what someone actually means when he speaks, we should bypass his words and look within to see whether we feel either enlivened and peaceful, or disturbed and drained. And if we want to know what we truly meant when we spoke with someone, we should ask that person to be honest and tell us how he feels in his body after receiving our communication. Put differently, do we feel a heightened or a diminished sense of well being in the presence of the other? And do they experience more, or less, well being in our presence? We must train ourselves to look beyond the literal meaning of words and gestures if we are to discover the true intent of any communication.
Becoming conscious of our self-talk and the effect it has not only on us but also on others, is the first step in transforming how we communicate. Communicating for empowerment, as a way of being, is the goal but in order to accomplish this our first step must be to make a personal commitment to cleaning up our internal dialogue. The second step, therefore, is to root out our unconscious negatives and burn them in the fire of Self-awareness. Transformational breath, self-inquiry and meditation are the most effective means for healing the mind of its negative tendencies. The third step is to train ourselves to be observant of how we communicate and to note any negative or disempowering comments we are passing on to others. With practice we will be able to check negative or random thoughts arising in consciousness and stop them before they become the spoken word. In due course, through persistent self-observation combined with the practices of purification already mentioned, negative, entropic thinking will simply disappear from our internal screen. Communicating from a context of empowerment is our natural state and contributes both potently and silently to the peace, happiness and well being of others.
In transformational leadership, communication is radically different from what has been described above. Ordinary communication tends to keep us ‘at the effect’ of circumstances, which is to say resigned, disempowered and mesmerised by the relentless flow of propaganda and daily routine.
Transformational communication, on the other hand, intends to awaken our true potential, empower us in realising that potential and enable us to break free of our dependency on unexamined and unhealthy collective ‘mindsets’. Instead of suppressing authentic self-expression, it can unlock our vast and hidden reservoir of creative intelligence.
Creativity cannot be separated from results. When we say someone is a creative individual, we mean that he or she is producing identifiable and innovative results in the physical universe. Artists are recognised as creative on the basis of the originality of their artwork, scientists because of fresh breakthroughs arising from their research, entrepreneurs because of their ability to see unique opportunities and transform them into market place realities, etc.
As an undergraduate student this writer enrolled in a course on the history of economic thought. I was struck by how most of the renowned economic thinkers we reviewed had themselves studied under other famous economists. ‘Could this be mere coincidence?’ I asked. I came to the conclusion that the way these exceptional thinkers communicated with their students had a transformational effect not only on how their proteges thought about economics, but on their thinking process itself. They had empowered their students in calling into question hitherto unexamined assumptions and asking questions which no one else had dared or even thought to ask. As original thinkers in their field, they had been able to transmit their way of thinking about thinking itself, thereby inspiring self-confidence and awakening the creative intelligence of their students. The real power of communication lies not in transmitting information, but in empowering those with whom we are communicating in having their own breakthroughs. As the American poet, e.e. cummings, wrote, ‘Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.’
Transformational communication inspires the asking of deeper questions, the deepest question of all being, ‘Who or what or whence am I?’ It pushes us to press through our unconsciousness and examine our own conditioning. It also challenges us to examine our beliefs about the nature of reality, assumptions we have unconsciously adopted from our families, teachers and milieu, including the popular media. Furthermore, it leaves the receiver of the communication squarely at the centre of his universe and one hundred per cent responsible for his own experience. Transformational communication dispenses with the illusion that someone or something ‘out there’ is going to save us or give us a quick fix to a problem. Rather, it addresses us as already complete and whole, and fully capable of managing brilliantly our particular corner of the universe. Thus, the transformed leader does not pull people about by the nose, but challenges them to assume full responsibility for whatever it is they are facing and inspires them with the confidence that they are completely trustworthy and competent to handle the challenge, however large or small it may be.
When communication is empowering it motivates people to take effective action for producing concrete results. As long as we know and perceive ourselves as incarnated with physical bodies, we must assume responsibility for the material laws governing time, space, energy and matter. In this world, results are always in some way measurable and produced by specific actions in time. Those who succeed in their projects surrender to this fact and take effective action to produce the results they intend. The transformational leader may be well acquainted with the Transcendent, but he remains fully grounded in the here and now of the material world. In this way, he leads by example, demonstrating that the highest philosophy embraces rather than rejects the ordinary realities of daily life.
Transformational communication rides on a wave of clear, strong intention, reflecting a high degree of Self-awareness. Silence is the ocean from which such potent messages arise, and these messages have an almost physical force. The object is never to speak for the sake of speaking or to impress, cajole, manipulate, camouflage, plead, seduce, bully or threaten. Rather, speaking is an undiluted, undistorted expression of an underlying intent, the purpose of which is always to produce some tangible, measurable and agreeable result in the physical universe. This is the yoga of action.
No comments:
Post a Comment